Philippians 4:8-9 | Filtering Our Thoughts and Practices through God’s Word

Sunday Morning | November 30, 2025 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

Student Pastor Colby Flowers encourages us to intentionally filter our thoughts, actions, and daily practices through the lens of God’s Word, drawing insight from the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Philippians 4:8-9. He reminds us that what we dwell on shapes who we become, urging us to focus on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. By aligning our minds and habits with these virtues, we not only cultivate spiritual maturity but also experience the practical power of living a Christ-centered life. Pastor Colby emphasizes that this intentional focus is not passive; it requires conscious effort to apply God’s truth, which in turn equips us to model Christ in our relationships, decisions, and everyday moments.

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

Transcript

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Good morning church, how are we doing? Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families. Hope it is a great time for you. It was so great in fact, we assumed that we decided to make sure the elevators weren't working this morning. So that everybody had to take the stairs. Okay, so, I'm just kidding. Totally not on purpose. So sorry for the inconvenience, but, hey, there's nothing wrong walking a couple steps here, but so glad that you chose to worship with us this morning. And to begin the service with baptism, to enter the time of worship. And now to get in God's Word. We have so many reasons to be thankful for. We have so many things that we can be thankful for, and I pray that this season you allow those things to sink into your mind that you would hold and and and cherish those things that you can be thankful for. There's so many things that we can choose to think about, right? But I pray this season you chose to think of the things that that we should be giving thanks for, particularly to God. But I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We had a great Thanksgiving, but, I've had this struggle over the years with Thanksgiving, and it's somewhat of a difficulty for me. And I think it's probably one of the most difficult things about Thanksgiving is being able to approach a Thanksgiving feast and discerning what's making it on your plate, even if you have the special wide plates, you know what I'm talking about. You still probably can't fit everything on to that plate, and by the time you get through a plate or 2 or 3, you know you have to really choose what you want on that plate. And I know nobody in this room overate this year. I think we can all put our hands on the Bible and swear to that, right? Nobody overate this year. But, when when it's coming to picking out what I want for Thanksgiving, I sometimes have some difficulty. But I've kind of learned myself. What I like to do is I like to go last. I like to step back and kind of game plan what I'm going to do and what's going on to my plate so that I don't miss out on what I really want, because it's easy to go to the front of line and just get everything at the front, and then you get to the end. You're like, oh, why did I miss the the corn pudding or the mashed potatoes when I, when I filled up on this. Right? Y'all get what I'm saying. So it's difficult. But this is important to consider and to sift through your options and listen this morning we're going to talk about being able to, using our minds and considering and sifting and filtering through options. And so this morning we're going to be in Philippians chapter four verses eight and nine. Here's the idea that we're going to look at, this morning. Here it is. The Christian must stay active in filtering their thoughts and practices. The Christian must stay active in this way. So we looked last week at verses six and seven, our memory verses. Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything with prayer and supplication. With. With prayer and what not now. I'm messing up. Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. But then this verse in verse seven says, and the peace of God which guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So the question really has to be asked in if our hearts and our minds are guarded by the peace of God. What are they supposed to do now? If my heart and my mind, particularly this morning, my mind if it's guarded by the peace of God from anxious thoughts, what are they supposed to do now? Are they supposed to go into idle mode? Or is our mind supposed to go into, a sit back and I can just coast through life now? I don't have to stay active, but I can be passive in my thoughts. What Paul's going to do is he's going to jump right into what we're supposed to do now in light of what he just said. We shouldn't be anxious. The peace of God is now guarding our minds and our hearts in Christ Jesus through it, through our prayers. But now, what are we supposed to do? So as we consider this idea of what it means to filter or sort or sift through our thoughts and our practices, what we do. I pray that this would make an impact on your life, because I think this is something that is easily overlooked or not considered in the Christian life. But your thoughts are incredibly important. And so we're going to see here in two verses what this means. So Philippians chapter four, verse eight, the word is going to be on the screen for us this morning. And this is what Paul says as he's starting to wrap up this book. He begins, finally, Paul's way of kind of wrapping up his argument. He began it in verse four, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, look what he says. Think about these things. Think. This word think is one of Paul's favorite words that he uses in his letters. It's a Greek word that he uses 27 times in his letters, and the rest of the New Testament only uses it six, so we could say Paul really liked this word. It means to think, to reckon, to consider, or to meditate. This is not a, a fleeting thought. It's not one thought, and then it's gone. This is a a meditating thought that Paul's saying, and he says, think. In fact, he's already said it in the book. You go back to chapter three, verse 15. He says, let those of us who are mature think this way. Chapter two, verse five, he says, have this mind among yourselves in Christ Jesus. Have this mindset, this attitude. What Paul wants us to do is what I think as a Christian, as a believer, we are supposed to think. So listen, the Christian life is meant to be thoughtful and not, if I can say it this way, mentally idle, inactive, lazy, passive. That is, the thought enters our mind and then we don't address it. A thought enters our mind and we allow it to stay in our mind. But Paul says, you need to think. I want to get to what he he means by that in just a second. But but just to help us, I think all of us know what a thought is. But they can be sometimes hard to define or measure. But there's a Christian writer named Dallas Willard. He wrote a book called renovation of the heart. He says it in this way, and I think it's helpful for me and maybe helpful for you. He says, by thoughts, we mean all of the ways in which we are conscious of things. Now, clearly, our thoughts are one of the most basic sources of our life. They determine the orientation of everything we do and evoke feelings that frame our world and motivate our actions to several things to note here. Our thoughts are important. How you think will orient and frame your life, don't they not? Honestly your thoughts and your emotions are connected, but your thoughts you've got control over to a certain extent. We have the ability to think and direct, and so they're really important. Everything that we're conscious, if you may have thoughts pop into your mind, but you also can consciously set your mind towards things. So let me say it this way. Our minds should remain active to sift through our thoughts. If you're like me, I am sometimes terrible with my mail. When I go to the mailbox, get my big stack of mail between the the advertisements and the sales and the bills and occasionally the nice thank you notes. Those are nice, but mostly it's everything that I don't want. I know if I don't deal with that stack of mail right then and there, it's going to end up on my counter in my kitchen. And before you know it, I've got two, three, four stacks of mail and then it's taken over a whole side. So I've learned about myself that as soon as I get that mail, I've got to sift through it. I got to go through and think, all right, this is unimportant. This is not needed. I don't want this. This is important. Now I'm going to deal with this. And this is the same way with our thoughts. If we approach our thoughts with this thing of, oh, well, I'll get to that later, I'll allow that thought to stay and I'll deal with it later on. I don't want to deal with it. That can cause problems. So I think what Paul is beginning to show us is that we need to be active in thinking and sifting through our thoughts. Be so -- Listen, it is risky to allow an unexamined or an unresolved thought to take root in your mind. That is a thought that we haven't really thought through. A thought comes into our mind and we don't consider what it means. We don't. We don't entertain if it's good or for it's bad if it's true or for it's a lie. And we just allow that thought to burrow into our mind. And before you know it, it's there. And you can't discern it. Because once it gets in there and it's planted in your mind, it's hard to get out. Is it not? So listen, the thoughts that are planted in your mind, in my mind. Listen. They will shape your life.

Proverbs 4: 10:24

23 says something similar. It says about our heart, but it's true of our mind as well. It says, guard your heart. Why? For from it come the springs of life. You're. The orientation of your life is directed by your thoughts and by your heart. And so Paul is saying, listen, we need to think. And I want to be honest with you, this morning I looked up, just to be sure. Studies kind of vary on this. Some studies, older studies said that we have up to 70,000 thoughts in a day. Those have largely been disproven, but it's more in the range of 6 to 6500 thoughts in a day. That's a lot of thoughts. How do I sift through all of those and listen, I understand that we're not going to be able to sift and filter and go through every single thought, because some thoughts will come into our mind and they're gone in a moment. I ask my wife, okay. Sorry, sweetie, but that's the way thoughts work. Sometimes thoughts come in and go out, but there are a lot of thoughts that come into our mind. But we don't think about them. We just let them sit with the unbearable and get into our mind. So listen, you cannot control every thought that comes to your mind, but you can capture and evaluate them. You can. You can take hold of them, evaluate them, whether to keep them to think more about them or to get rid of them. It takes a lot of discipline in this way. I can't begin to go into the ins and outs in the psychological part of that. I'm gonna have to get Debbie Edds up here for that. But but for for our sake, there is a way that we can capture those thoughts, deal with them and evaluate them if they are good, true, right, holy, pure as we're going to see. Does that make sense? We might have an intrusive thought, might have thoughts that come from our subconscious that we aren't in control of. They come into our mind, but we have the ability to take hold of them and then evaluate. Choose. My first point this morning. We need to take every thought captive. Paul says it this way. He says it this way in a verse, and that's why I'm using it in this language. I love this language is a great mental picture. Thought comes, I'm taking it. What does this mean? Is this good? Is is bad for me? Is it not good for me? If it's good, I'm holding on to it. I'm soaking it. It's. This is a good thought. If it's not throwing it away, look at Second Corinthians ten, verse five. Paul is addressing the church in Corinth for the second time, and he says, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. I think what Paul would say to us is we should not allow thoughts to linger in our mind that are going to harm us, thoughts in our mind that are going to drive us into a direction of our life, that we don't want to go in because our thoughts will orient us towards a particular way, does it not? Just as it's a warning, it's an encouragement. So let's get back to this verse. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Now. Paul's helpful here. He gives us six categories, if we can put it this way, six categories of thought that we should have. He helps define them. And these are really broad categories. We likely don't think of our thoughts in this way. And that's okay. But coming from the Bible, I think this can be helpful in a perspective of how we should and ought to think. And then at the very end, he gives us even two even broader categories to help us think of it. But I want to take us each category at a time very briefly and kind of lay out, I think what Paul's saying here, okay, so he says whatever six times, whatever. He's given us these big broad categories to include all these thoughts. So he says, first, whatever is true, that is we need to think about things that are true, think about things that are honest. So we know what that means, that we shouldn't think about. Right. We don't think about things that are untrue. We don't allow untrue thoughts about you, about the world, about our life to stay in our heads. We get them out. Secondly, he says, whatever is honorable things that are honorable, that bring honor to us, to other people, to society, we think on those things and those that bring dishonor or shame. We get rid of them. Make sense? See what he's doing, and he says, whatever is just, whatever is right, lawful. We need to think on those things and things that are unjust or or things that aren't correct aren't right. We need to get rid of them. What is lovely, what is beautiful, what is pleasing we need to think on. But things that are ugly, disgusting, remove them. Last, whatever is commendable, whatever is, is, is reputable, whatever is seen and by other people as good and as right. Those are the things we should think about. But the things that are not commendable we should get rid of. And and again, two broad categories. If there's any excellence that is moral goodness, if there's anything that's good, think about them. But if it's bad, if it's evil, get it out. Last but not least, if there's anything worthy of praise. This is kind of like commendable. What he's saying here is anything that we do or say or think that would be worthy and reputable, we should also do and hold those thoughts. So do you see what he's doing here? He's giving us categories so that we can filter them through whether we should have these thoughts or not. But there's a pastor kind of helped me understand this a little bit, because I was chewing on this a lot. And Pastor John Piper, speaker, writer, author, amazing man. He kind of helped me understand this, but he brought this to light. And these aren't his words, but they're really close to what he would say. He said, here's the point. I'll just tell them our thoughts should be able to satisfy all of these categories, and not just some of them is this way. What if you have a true thought, but it's impure? Could you hold it? What have you ever thought that is just. That doesn't hurt anybody, right? That's okay. I can have that thought, but it's impure. You ever thought that's true? But it's actually dishonorable. So our thought should fit into all of these categories. Do you kind of see what he's doing? This is how our thoughts should be. So bring it to a point. I know that was a lot. We should meditate on these things and remove what is immoral and disgraceful. Now again, as a Christian, I think in the Christian faith, since I've been in the Christian faith, I haven't heard a lot of people talk like this from the from the pulpit. I'm sure there have. But for me, my experience as a Christian, this seems to be something that is kind of like pushed off to the side. It's read your Bible, pursue Christ, pray and all of these things you can hear but never thought. Have you ever dealt with your thoughts? But how important is it? And in these two verses Paul makes it very important. Does he not? But here's the question if I can have you all go on a journey with me just for a second, how do we know what is true? How do we know what's honorable? How do we know it's pure? How do we know what's commendable? Here it is. Here's what Paul would say, and here's what he has said in his scriptures. Our thoughts should be grounded in God's Word. You want to know something that will change your 2026 coming full, coming up, coming ahead as if your mind was so saturated with God's Word that your thoughts mimicked the Bible. Now, none of us can say that we can get to that point in this life. But what if our thoughts started looking more like the Bible and less like the world?

Psalm 119: 19:23

97, I love this verse. The psalmist is saying, oh how I love your law all the day I meditate on it. Now meditate on the word. And here's the beautiful part church. The more you know God's Word, the better you will be able to filter your thoughts. The more Bible you got up here, the more you'll know what's a bad thought, what's untrue, what's not honorable, what's impure, what's not just you'll be able to filter through those thoughts and then soak up those thoughts that are good and direct your mind to what God would have us. So my second point this morning, filter your thoughts through God's Word. That's how we should approach our thought life. The Bible helps us frame and ground our thoughts into something that's objectively true. If our thoughts are left to their own, yikes! Amen. Excuse me, but if our thoughts are grounded in God's Word, we have an objective truth that we can hold on to. So our allergies were hitting me hard this week. Anybody else? Excuse me. So let's go on to that. Let's go back to verse nine here. So skip this next verse, last verse here. Verse nine Paul moves from thinking now to doing. Here's what he says, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Practice these things first, he says what I think, now he says, practice. Anybody else kind of hear, have in your head the old Allen Iverson quip. We talking about practice, we talking about practice. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Oh my gosh, am I going overhead okay. Sorry, but that was in my head. And what Paul's trying to get us to see is we don't just want to think mentally, but now we to-- we need to live our life practically. We need to practice these things. And Paul was not the type of person to just talk a big game. Paul lived his life in such a way that you could watch and observe Paul and be like, I want to be like him. I want to be like Paul because he’s bold in his faith. He didn't just talk a big game, he lived it. And so how important is it that we have people that we can observe and look and follow in our life that show us how to live the Christian life? Not they're getting these these three men baptized. We, you know, typically we try to push people into life groups because we though we have this understanding of Valley View, this mission that we want to get you into the life group. Because doing this Christian life on your own is very, very hard. And it's not the way it was meant to be, we’re meant to do it together. It's like a look across this room and see me. And then I'm looking to right now that I want to be like. But how important is it that we have someone to aim toward? So listen, we will form habits by what we observe from others. Your life and your ceiling of how you're going to live as a Christian. How a lot of that is determined by who's around you. If people around you that are pulling you down, you're not going to grow. But if you have people around you that are maturing their faith, they're passionate about God's Word. They love Christ. They love missions. They love to see their lost neighbor come to know Christ. Guess what? That's what you're going to be passionate about. But we have to have people in our life that we observe and follow. So just just really quickly, I want you to think, who are you following right now? Who are you following? So be careful. I'm not talking about a mega pastor that you follow on Instagram or Facebook. I'm not talking about somebody that's all the way across the country that you simply observe. Although through social media there are some means to that. But I'm talking about right here in front of you. Who are you following? Because here's the truth. I hope you hear this. You are following someone. And here's the scary part -- someone's likely following you. They might be your kids, might be a coworker. Might be someone at work. Might be a family member. Might be someone in this room that you have no idea. That we did this with our students. We did a whole series about following how we follow Jesus, and we need to follow people who are following Jesus. But then I challenge them, hey, don't be shocked if someone's following you too. And so I went around the room and I said, hey, can anyone raise their hand and say, who are you following in this room? And so one of our our middle school girls at that time raise their hand and said, I'm following this person and you should have seen the look on her face of who she was following like, she's following me? That kind of scared, you know? But it's true. And I think we all need to have that reality. Wherever you're hiding your spiritual walk, guess what? Someone's likely following you. You are giving an example of someone to follow. But two things can be true here at once. You need to be following somebody more mature than you, and you have to be willing to lead someone who's less mature than you. Because it won't take long. Because for the most, for your nearly your entire life, this is going to be true. You will not be the least mature in the room, and you won't be the most mature in the room for most of your life. So we need to be diligent. Who are you following? But also who are you leading? So here's my third point. Filter your practices through the life of mature Christians. How you live. You can filter those things through other mature believers and say, well, this mature Christian doesn't do this. This is harmful. I got to take this out of my life. This mature, mature Christian is doing this. I'm going to add it to my life. This is being an active participant in your Christian walk. None of this implies passivity or idleness. This is activity in the Christian life. But I want to end this on a good note. Two on a less challenging note, because although we need to think and practice and stay active in those thoughts, look what happens as the result. Church look in verse nine. Last phrase in it, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me-- practice these things and look what it says and the God of peace will be with you. Wow, we just looked last week. Verse seven. And the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Certainly God's presence is in that. But Paul does something here really interesting. I think this is what he's doing. But listen, you do not merely receive a dose of peace, but the author of peace himself. Although if you ever watch these videos. But I love these videos and I and I get emotional. I was talking with a student over here. I said, I don't remember the last time I had a really good cry, but it was probably at this video because there's these videos and you've probably seen them, but it's like a compilation of different things, and there's a kid or a child in there on a on a stage or they're going to a game and they run on out and you see all the kids like looking around for mom and dad. They're looking around, they're trying to find them, and you see a little bit of a concern, like, where's dad? Where are they? And then the parents filming them, right. Because they're really excited during the game or during the, the choir or whatever it is. And there's such a beautiful moment when the kid spots their mom or dad and the excitement and the joy and the delight and listen, the peace that overwhelms them in that moment because they know their parents showed up. If I can give you some encouragement this morning. If you've trusted in Christ, God is always showing up for you. God isn't the type of God that he just kind of gives you a little dose of peace. Here you go. I'm doing. No, God's in the midst of every thought that you have. Psalm 139 tells us that God knows your thoughts before you do so. The thoughts and the practices that you're filtering, that you're weighing in, God's already there, and he knows what you're going to do and what you're going to think. And this is the beautiful part when you take your thoughts and take your practices and you filter them through what God has for us, listen, you not only get peace, you get the author of peace himself. So here I can wrap it up this way. Godly thoughts and habits will make you more aware of God's presence. It's not that God's presence ever departs from us, it's that we forget he's with us as a Christian, as a believer. If we trusted in Christ, the presence of God never leaves. God says all over the Bible, I will never leave you or forsake you, but we forget it. But the beautiful part is, is that God never leaves. We just become less aware that he's there. So you know what happens when we have godly thoughts and godly habits in our life? It helps us make. It makes us more aware that he's right by our side. So if I get to my last point this morning, dwell in the peaceful presence of God. Dwell in it. Live a life that is thoughtful, that is active in practice, and it's all filtered through God's Word. I am a true believer, and you will have a great awareness of God's peace and his presence in your life. And for those of you who are really struggling with your thoughts this morning. I pray that you would be reminded that the God of Peace is here right now. Whatever anxious thought you have, whatever anxiety that you have, God knows. He knows what you're going through. So I would encourage you among believers and among people who love you, would you just bring those thoughts to God? And in this community? Here's your challenge this morning, friends. Are you staying active in filtering your thoughts and practices? So just think to yourself, how's my thought life going? Are you thinking things that whatever is true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and commendable and excellent and worthy of praise. Those your thoughts lately, or the the opposite? Filter them through God's Word. Look at your life. Are you growing closer to Christ in His in His character? Are you growing closer to the world? Filter your life through mature believers in this room. Get in a life group. Join a men's group. Join a women's group. We want you to be closer to Christ in the next year. So as you walk by faith that you would be taking steps towards Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that it helps us frame up our thoughts, our ideas, those that are good and bad. God, I pray that we would not be lazy or idle in our thoughts. That father, we would be active in sifting and filtering and sorting and making sure, father, that whatever gets into our mind, in our thoughts, in our soul, are of you, that they are true. They are good, they're honorable and pure and commendable. God, that we would set our minds on those things. So, God, I pray for the thought life of every person in this room that you would fill their minds God with good thoughts. Biblical thoughts. And I pray, father, that all of us in this room can point to someone, someone God, that we can say, I'm following that Christian. And that we would be aware, God, that someone's likely following us so that we would have a greater conviction to live our life according to your Word and God. We thank you this morning, last but not least, for the peace that comes from your presence, the peace that grants us and guards us and protects us. And I pray, father, that every person in this room would know that peace in the mighty name of Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace. Amen.